CEO subpoena scam fires up anew
After tricking several thousand executives into downloading malicious software
earlier this week, online scammers started up their subpoena
phishing scam again Wednesday, but on a much smaller scale.
First reported Monday, the phishers send a small number of e-mail messages
to senior executives within companies, often CEOs, telling them that they've
been subpoenaed for a federal court case. The e-mails direct the victim to a
Web site that is very similar to a legitimate California federal court page,
but ending in "...-uscourts.com," rather than the "....uscourts.gov"
Web domain actually used by federal courts.
Although they end with the same letters, the domains used in this scam are
actually different from and not connected with the uscourts.com
Web site, which offers access to court records in some jurisdictions.
The e-mail
sent to executives is specially crafted to appear legitimate, a tactic called
"spear-phishing." The emails include the executive's name, company's
name and even the correct phone number.
Executives who click on the link in the e-mail are then told that they need
to download a plug-in in order to read the subpoena. That plug-in is actually
malicious software.
Although the U.S. federal court system uses email to communicate information
about cases, subpoenas for new cases are not served via e-mail.
Verisign, which estimates that about 2,000 people were tricked by the scam
on Monday, believes that Wednesday's attack was on a much smaller scale. Late
Wednesday the company's iDefense group had tracked only about 100 infections,
said Matt Richard, director of iDefense's Rapid Response Team.
Security experts have been fighting the phishers. By Tuesday they'd managed
to get the first phishing Web site taken down, only to have the second one pop
up on Wednesday.
Because the attack targets such a small number of victims, anti-spam companies
have had a hard time filtering the e-mails and antivirus companies have been
similarly pressed to block the malicious software that the attackers are using.
Late Wednesday, antivirus companies were not blocking this latest version of
the malware, said John Bambenek, a security researcher at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and volunteer at the SANS
Internet Storm Center.
IDG News Service
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
